impl.emented» Windows Vista http://impl.emented.com — tracking the Web Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:12:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Vista Security is Broken - Midori Coming to the Rescue? [Best of August '08 #1] http://impl.emented.com/2008/08/11/vista-security-is-broken-midori-coming-to-the-rescue/ http://impl.emented.com/2008/08/11/vista-security-is-broken-midori-coming-to-the-rescue/#comments Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:04:53 +0000 Jonas Bolinder http://impl.emented.com/?p=45 This week was all about Microsoft's current and future operating systems (August 4-10 2008):

  • The much touted security of Windows Vista seems to be worthless, according to findings by the two security researchers Mark Dowd and Alexander Sotirov. SearchSecurity writes:

    By taking advantage of the way that browsers, specifically Internet Explorer, handle active scripting and .NET objects, the pair have been able to load essentially whatever content they want into a location of their choice on a user's machine. [...] That's completely game over.

    The researchers seems to have found a way to compromise .NET objects, which IE assumes are safe, effectively using the objects as stepping stones for other attacks.
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  • Dave Winer has a piece about why he thinks Vista may fail, comparing the operating system to two other failed OSes of the past: OS/2 and Apple III. "Vista has the smell of death," writes Winer, outlining a few other reasons why he disapproves of the OS. The ones I particularly agree with are "5. Everything is happening in the web browser now," and "6. [...] there is no demand for new operating systems." No one actually needs grand new operating system, just keeping tuning and tweaking the existing OSes should be enough. That's one thing I like about Linux (the kernel specifically), it's (almost) from the beginning been called Linux and will probably be called that forever. It just has a version number (currently 2.6.26), which is incremented as bugs are fixed and new features are added. The only reason I see for Microsoft to release a new OS is if they come up with a complete rewrite, with all junk code discarded that has piled up through the years (cf. this highlight mentioning the current problem with Windows core architecture). This could be the promise of Midori, which is pointed out as Microsoft's future non-windows operating system, see the next item below.
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  • Ars technica reports on recent speculations about Midori, a coming non-Windows operating system from Microsoft. Key features of Midori are that it's based on managed code, .NET presumably, which takes the load of memory management off the developer. Further, the OS should be easy to virtualize, even allowing it to run as a separate Windows process. This would facilitate backwards compatibility, as the OS could initially be run inside a legacy Windows OS. Midori is also assumed to be well prepared for cloud computing, allowing for asynchronous API calls and making it easier to program for multiple processors. This last part is important from a performance and efficiency point of view, as CPUs get multiple cores. Multithreaded programming is a difficult and error-prone task, not well suited for the everyday programmer.
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  • On a lighter note, Lifehacker featuring the How-To Geek, debunks a number of Windows performance tweaking myths. Like registry cleaning and memory optimizing, as is offered by several tools, and disabling of Windows services (except for possibly a few ones). Personally, I use CCleaner to remove temporary files, and I defragment my hard drives a few times a year, which seems to be enough to keep Windows XP reasonably fit.
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]]> http://impl.emented.com/2008/08/11/vista-security-is-broken-midori-coming-to-the-rescue/feed/ 0 SproutCore JavaScript Framework is Pushing for Standards Compliant Browsers [Best of June '08 #3] http://impl.emented.com/2008/06/23/sproutcore-javascript-framework-is-pushing-for-standards-compliant-browsers/ http://impl.emented.com/2008/06/23/sproutcore-javascript-framework-is-pushing-for-standards-compliant-browsers/#comments Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:48:26 +0000 Jonas Bolinder http://impl.emented.com/?p=38 Interesting posts this week (June 16-22 2008):

  • There was some buzz about SproutCore this week — YAJF (Yet Another JavaScript Framework) if you like, though this one comes with an application framework supporting the MVC (Model-View-Controller) design pattern. SproutCore, labeled by some as a Flash competitor, relies solely on web standards like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. In fact, the provided demos relies on elements of the forthcoming standards HTML5 and CSS3, currently supported by the Safari browser, but not by IE7, for example. However, standards compliance is always welcome, even if a bit ahead. Hopefully this can help to speed up the compliance efforts of the other browser vendors.
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  • Semantic search engine Hakia opens up their services to developers and provides an API. Free access to the search API is time limited "until the partners' quota is filled," as they write. The text analysing API, however, does not seem to be time limited and is free up to 1000 requests per day. Currently available for text analysis is the "Summarizer", which provides "a summary of a large text block or URL". Yet to come is the "Categorizer", "Characterizer" and "Text Meaning Representation (TMR)", which are additional semantic analysis tools.
    ReadWriteWeb tested the Summarizer API component, and weren't very impressed, writing: "Mostly, it seemed to just return the headline or first sentence as the summary for articles we threw at it."
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  • Lifehacker, featuring The How-To Geek explains a few tweaks how to make Windows Vista less annoying. Something for Microsoft to read and learn. I'm still using XP, though I'll probably shift to Vista in due course. I'd rather use Linux, but I'm afraid I'm too dependent on Microsoft-only tools and software.
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  • Ed Bott asks if we will be using petabyte-sized (1000 TB) disks in 2020. That's not unlikely if Moore's Law continue to hold. Historically hard disk capacity has increased 10 fold every 5 years. To get some perspective, Google processes over 20 petabytes of data per day. Around 2035, we will have exabyte (1000 PB) disks. That can still be useful, since in 2006 it was estimated that Internet users created 161 exabytes of new data, a number that is estimated to grow to around a zettabyte (1000 EB) in 2010. Next in turn storage devices are yottabyte (1000 ZB) disks, which can be expected around 2065, which is probably beyond my lifetime though.
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  • Josh Catone leaves RWW, sadly enough. He will always be remembered by this blog for his Web 3.0 posts though.
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